Queen West Art Crawl Festival

Queen West Art Crawl is Back in Trinity Bellwoods Park

September 24th and 25th, Celebrating a Cross Pollination of People and Art

The Queen West Art Crawl multi-arts festival is back in full swing this September 24th and 25th, closing off your summer in the heart of downtown: West Queen West’s Trinity Bellwoods Park.

The festival runs from noon to 6pm both days with opening ceremonies featuring two-spirited First Nations leader Elder Blu, a drum circle and Jingle Dancing starting at 11:45am on the 24th. The festival is then open for all to enjoy, packed with free entertainment, food, and shopping opportunities.

As always the festival centers around the Outdoor Art Exhibition, featuring artists and artisans from across Ontario, allowing patrons to meet the artists and buy their work. Roughly 100 Artists will display their creations this year, with works ranging from paintings to wood sculpture to ceramics. These one-of-a-kind pieces can provide an excellent head start for anyone’s holiday shopping.

By the Beer Tent provided by Steam Whistle Brewery, and still the only licensed event in Trinity Bellwoods Park, is the Main Stage where QWAC offers its free concert series. Featuring the Juno nominated Autorickshaw, as well as unique local acts Reggaddiction, Poor Man’s High, Gossamer Blue, Earlybird, and The Vaudevillian. First Nation’s synth-pop hitmaker Wolf Saga will be headlining our Saturday. Linguistic diversity will be provided by Dominican-Canadian Ana Lia singing her Spanish Language hits, while Franco Canadian R&B Singer and DJ Sandy Duperval will be performing songs from her most recent French language LP. Finally, our annual band co-present in association with the Toronto Blues Society is Granetta and Dagroovmasters, winners of this year’s Live Talent Search at the Toronto Jazz Festival. Drag Queens, such as Sofonda Cox, fill out the remainder of our Main Stage performances ensuring that there is something for everyone at QWAC.

Speaking of Drag Queens… Our Kids’ Zone is a queer-friendly space where all families are invited. Daily Story Time with Fay and Fluffy (2pm each day) is a perennial favourite at the festival. New this year, we are taking our family friendly comedy – which we experimented with during our virtual years – and putting it live in the park! Kids can laugh with expert improvisers Coko and Daphney who are joined by The Tita Collective each day at 3pm, during our Kidprov’ Show. Additional kids’ entertainment is provided by Mad Science, Roseneath Theatre, and Blank Canvas teaching our little artists about arts and crafts.

The Queen West Art Crawl is celebrating its 19th year and its first year back in person since 2020. We hope that you can join us for this exciting, annual event, that brings people from diverse backgrounds together to celebrate Toronto and its vibrant art culture.